Board Layout

Click here for a 3000x2500 high-res shot of the board (3 MB download), the backside is here.


The space around the CPU area is well within specifications, but the chipset cooler worries me a bit. With ultra-huge heatsinks this might be a tight fit.


The IO backpanel has an air exhaust for the OTES-like blower. From left to right the connectors are PS/2 keyboard, PS/2 mouse, Serial Port, SPDIF, Dual Ethernet, 4 USB ports, and audio.


It has become good-practice to color-code the memory slots to indicate dual-channel configuration. Putting both memory modules in slots of the same color enables dual-channel.

ATX mobo hole issue

When I first hooked this board up to the test bench, I was surprised to see the PSU switch on an off repeatedly in fractions of a second, even though I never touched the power button. Usually this is caused by a short circuit. The PSU detects the short and turns off, then it turns on again, and so on.

Did ECS send me a broken board? After removing the board from the motherboard tray and just holding it in my hands it worked. Strange... so it only happens when the board is in the tray. I added sheets of insulation below the board to spot the location which causes the short circuit.


I was shocked that the PF5 seems to be missing a motherboard mounting hole. One the left is the ECS PF5, on the right is the DFI LanParty NF4. As you can see the second hole is not there.


The ATX specification defines the location of hole B, but it also says that it is not required for full-size ATX designs.

"The hole at B in Figure 2 was previously required along the rear edge of the board. This location is not required for ATX designs. If it is desired to implement a board mount in this area, a removable standoff should be used to avoid problems with boards that do not use this mounting location."

I could not find a single motherboard here (I checked eight different boards from different manufacturers) that does not implement this hole.

So if you get the ECS PF5, make sure you do not have a metal spacer at the location of the missing hole.

Connectors

The ATX12V connector isn't placed so well. If a PSU has a short cable you would have to route it right across the board instead of nicely tucking it away. The ATX power connector is placed fine though.


The SATA ports are grouped. Four ports coming from the Intel Southbridge are marked in orange, while the two ports from the SATA addon-chip are in red.


With PATA devices slowly dying out, there is only one IDE port on this board, which can support up to two devices on one cable.


Color-coded headers with proper labels on the board make first time installation very easy.


Five fan headers are located on the board, two are already used by the OTES and the chipset fan.

Slots

Two PCI-Express video card slots will let you use ATI's CrossFire. NVIDIA has not announced support for SLI on Intel yet, but in my opinion this is only a matter of time. The single PCI-E x1 slot is lost if you use CrossFire, but are there any cards for PCI-E x1 yet anyway?